Regional Politics of Memory in Poland's Warmia and Masuria Kostyashov, Yu
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www.ssoar.info Regional politics of memory in Poland's Warmia and Masuria Kostyashov, Yu. V.; Sergeev, V. V. Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Kostyashov, Y. V., & Sergeev, V. V. (2018). Regional politics of memory in Poland's Warmia and Masuria. Baltic Region, 10(4), 118-131. https://doi.org/10.5922/2079-8555-2018-4-8 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY Lizenz (Namensnennung) zur This document is made available under a CC BY Licence Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden (Attribution). For more Information see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de Social and economic development A contribution to memory studies, this REGIONAL POLITICS work focuses on Poland’s Warmian-Masu- OF MEMORY IN POLAND’S rian voivodeship. Before the war, this ter- ritory and the neighbouring Kaliningrad WARMIA AND MASURIA region of Russia comprised the German province of East Prussia. In this article, we strive to identify the essence, mecha- 1 nisms, key stages, and regional features of Yu. V. Kostyashov the politics of memory from 1945 to the 1 V. V. Sergeev present. To this end, we analyse the legal regulations, the authorities’ decisions, statistics, and the reports in the press. We consider such factors as the education sector, the museum industry, the monu- mental symbolism, the oral and printed propaganda, holidays and rituals, the in- stitutions of national memory, the adop- tion of memory-related laws, and others. From the first post-war years, the regio- nal authorities sought to make the Polo- nocentric concept of the region’s history dominate the collective consciousness. This approach helped to use the post-war legacy impartially and effectively. Howe- ver, the image of the past was distorted. This distortion was overcome at the turn of the 21st century to give rise to the con- cept of open regionalism. An effective al- ternative to nationalistic populism, open regionalism provides a favourable back- ground for international cross-border cooperation. Keywords: politics of memory, War- mian-Masurian voivodeship, Poland, his- torical and cultural heritage, open regio- nalism ¹ Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal Introduction University, 14 A. Nevskogo Str., The concept of ‘politics of memo- Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia. ry’ gained currency in the literature Submitted on September 15, 2018 quite recently, in the 1980s. However, doi: 10.5922/2079-8555-2018-4-8 it is often used to refer to earlier peri- ods in the 20th century. There are di- © Kostyashov Yu. V., Sergeev V. V., 2018 verse interpretations of this term [1]. B118alti с Region. 2018. Vol. 10, № 4. Р. 118—131. Yu. V. Kostyashov, V. V. Sergeev In this article, we understand politics of memory as the combination of the attitudes of the state and its affiliated institutions towards the past, and the embedding of certain interpretations of historical events in the collective consciousness in order to suit the political moment. Discussions on the use of history for political purposes often centre on the national historical narrative, whereas the regional aspects thereof receive much less attention. The focus on Warmia and Masuria (today, Poland’s Warmian-Masurian voivodeship) is explained by the fact that this territory provides us with an opportunity to compare Polish experi- ence and Soviet practices [2; 3] of the reclamation of the former German province of East Prussia, which was divided between Poland and the USSR in 1945 at the Potsdam Conference. In this study, we aim at revealing the contents of politics of memory and its tools employed by Polish authorities of Warmia and Masuria after the war, as well as at analysing the integration processes in the region — home to both the indigenous population and the new settlers. We relied on the local authorities’ regulations and directives, official statistics, the publications in the press, and the recent works of Polish historians and political scientists [4—6]. Since the post-war history of Warmia and Masuria is not widely known, we will start our narrative with examining the origins of the local population. An ‘integration pot’? The former South of East Prussia was first referred to as the Masurian District. Later, in 1946, it was renamed the Olsztyn voivodeship. After a series of administrative reforms, a Warmian-Masurian voivodeship was established in 1999. Home to 1,434 thousand people (2018), it covers 24.2 thousand sq km. The reforms restored the historical name to the ter- ritory [7]. The Poles have governed the region since May 23, 1945, when the Soviet commandant of the city Colonel Aleksandr Shumsky handed over power to Poland’s Plenipotentiary Jakub Prawin. In December 1945, the Masurian voivodeship Rada Narodowa (National Council) was es- tablished by appointing 100 council members. The first election to the local bodies took place only in 1954 [8, pp. 682—683, 700]. As the fighting was over, approximately 200—250 thousand German citizen out of a pre-war population of 936.5 were remaining in the dis- tricts of East Prussia that were to be transferred to Poland. These num- bers included both ethnic Germans and Polonophones. The decision of the Allied Control Council on the ‘repatriation’ of the German population to Germany enjoyed the firm support of the Poles. The Wiadomości Ma- 119 Social and economic development zurskie newspaper wrote that ‘the piles of hatred and untruth that grew between the Poles and the Germans’ precluded not only the assimilation of the latter but even the two peoples living in one state [9, p. 4]. The dis- abled and senile, the mothers with many children, and the orphans were the first to be expelled. With interruptions, the mass deportation contin- ued from August 1946 through 1948. From the cessation of hostilities through 1950, approximately 112 thousand Germans left the Olsztyn voivodeship for Germany [10, p. 395—400, 412]. When it comes to integration processes in Warmia and Masuria, Polish historiography often refers to the concept of the ‘melting pot’ [11, s. 11—12]. Thus, it is important to analyse the composition of the re- gion’s population and identify its largest groups. Table 1 The population of the Olsztyn voivodeship in 1950, by origin [12, p. 329] Repatriates Repatria- and Population Auto Internal Unknown tes from reemigrants Total category chthonous migrants origin the USSR from the West Number (thousand people) 117.2 352.4 134.2 3.1 3.3 610.2 Specific weight (%) 19.2 57.8 22.0 0.5 0.5 100 Table 1 shows that the majority of new settlers (57.8 %) originated from the southern and central Polish voivodeships. The autochthonous population and the settlers from the USSR accounted for a similar pro- portion — around 20 %, whereas the percentage of the repatriates from the West was insignificant. Let us consider each group to gain an idea of their social experience, life ambitions, and collective memory. This com- parison will make it possible to evaluate the actions of the authorities, as well as the relevance of the theory of ‘melting pot’ to the situation in the region. Autochthons. This term was used to refer to the local Polonophone residents that were citizens of the Reich. However, it was not completely accurate, since there were many descendants of migrants among the East Prussian Poles. The actual autochthons of the region were the ancient Prussians who had been fully assimilated. 120 Yu. V. Kostyashov, V. V. Sergeev Whereas the Soviet authorities deported all the German citizens from the Kaliningrad region, regardless of their ethnic origins, their Polish counterparts distinguished between the Germans and the autochthonous Poles. The two major groups of the latter were the Warmians (the Polish residents of Warmia who practised Catholicism) and the Masurians (the Protestant residents of the Masurian Lake District). These former German subjects had to go through the verification procedure — their Polish de- scent had to be confirmed by a ‘civic commission’. The applicants had to prove that they originated from a Polish family, spoke their native tongue and cherished the national traditions. They also had to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Polish state. The preservation of their identity was out of the question. Moreover, the Polish settlers perceived the autochthons as ‘Schwabians’ and often discriminated against them. The verification was a lengthy process. In 1949, the Polish authorities granted forced citizen- ship to those autochthons who refused either to leave for Germany or to take an oath to Poland. Overall, approximately 133 thousand Warmians and Masurians obtained a Polish citizenship in the course of verification [10, p. 396; 13, p. 488]. These groups of the former East Prussian residents found it hard to adapt to the new conditions. When the opportunity arose, they preferred to leave for the country that they still considered their homeland. In 1956—1959, 3.9 thousand autochthons left the Olsztyn voivodeship for the GDR and 32.3 thousand for the FRG. In the next decade, another 15,000 people managed to obtain exit permits. The repatriation gained momentum as Poland and the FRG concluded a family reunion agree- ment on October 9, 1975. In 1976—1984, 36.2 thousand people left for the FRG in the framework of the reunion programme. Overall, 105 thou- sand residents of Warmia and Masuria resettled in West Germany in 1952—1984 [13, p. 488]. Today, the official Polish statistics largely ne- glects these ethnic groups. In the 2011 census, only 1376 people identi- fied themselves as Masurian. The number of Warmians is usually esti- mated at 4—5 thousand people. Some experts write that these groups number 20 thousand people, i.